Arizona trying to break Super Bowl jinx

It's a situation the Arizona Cardinals (0-1) are well aware of as they seek their first victory of the season today against the Jaguars.

"Whether you win or lose a Super Bowl, there are more issues than normal because there seems to be turmoil, whether it's losing coaches like we did, or whether it's losing players because they're getting more attention," Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said.

"Plus, I think you're recognized as a team that's played in it, and you're going to get the best effort from the teams you play. Maybe part of it is not being as focused a team as you were just because of all the other distractions."

Whatever the reasons, teams that advance to the Super Bowl one year rarely make the postseason the next.

From 1990-93, the Buffalo Bills reached four consecutive Super Bowls (losing all of them). But since Buffalo lost Super Bowl XXVIII, the loser of the big game hasn't found much success the next season.

Of the 15 teams since Buffalo's last Super Bowl loss, nine missed the postseason and three won one playoff game. None of the teams advanced beyond the divisional round of the playoffs. It's been 37 years since a team (1972 Miami Dolphins) won a Super Bowl a year after losing the big game.

Arizona, which lost 27-23 to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLIII, is the latest team searching for ways to combat the much-ballyhooed Super Bowl-loser jinx.

"I don't think anybody talks about it," said Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, who is 1-2 in Super Bowls. "You hear about it. All I can tell you is that with our situation, the key is going to be to be consistent. The one thing that we talked about last year, even before we made the Super Bowl run, was we weren't consistent all year. We were up and down, back and forth. We finally got consistent through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl. But we haven't sustained that.

"It's easy to put pressure on yourself like, 'Wow, man, we got all the way there, and we didn't do it. Now this year, we have to do it.' You start putting too much pressure on yourself. You start wanting to be too perfect instead of just relaxing and playing the game. That's what we've got to fight. Especially right now, because we haven't played up to our standards."

The Cardinals didn't win a preseason game, then lost their season opener against San Francisco. Whisenhunt points to turnover on the coaching staff as potentially being one of the biggest obstacles Arizona faces in avoiding a Super Bowl hangover.

Offensive coordinator Todd Haley left to become head coach of Kansas City. And the Cardinals enter the season with four additions to the offensive coaching staff: Curtis Modkins (running backs), Chris Miller (quarterbacks), John McNulty (receivers), and Chad Grim (offensive quality control). Whisenhunt also fired defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast and promoted Bill Davis to the post.

All those changes might be detrimental to the Cardinals' bid for a Super Bowl return. But history points to a lack of success for Super Bowl losers in the subsequent season, regardless of the circumstances.

"It might speak to the balance of talent in the league," Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said. "But when I was following real closely as a youngster growing up, the team that lost the Super Bowl the next year would come back and be real good."

That was before the salary-cap era, which crippled the Bills in 1994. They had just lost their fourth Super Bowl. Once the salary cap kicked in, Buffalo was forced to jettison starters and deplete depth just to retain the club's stars. The result was a 7-9 season.

"There's always a little aspect of complacency, where if you're a team that hasn't been there before and you go, you think, 'OK, we're pretty good, and we did it last year.' Some of that goes into your mind-set," Warner said. "It's tough to keep your edge in this business. For us, being a team that's never experienced that kind of success before, there are a lot of factors to coming back and understanding what we did last year and trying to do it again. [You] do it from Week 1 and do it week in and week out. Up to this point, we haven't done it yet."

History says they won't.

michael.wright@jacksonville.com,

(904) 359-4657

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